The BAC TSR.2 could easily
be
regarded as the last significant attempt by the UK to occupy a leading
position in top tier military aircraft design. Indeed, virtually all
projects which the UK have entered into since have been either
collaborative ventures with the US or the Europeans, or projects well
behind the technological "bleeding edge". Arguably, the RAF has yet to
fully recover from the damage inflicted by the cancellation of the
TSR.2, indeed many idiosyncratic aspects of the current RAF force
structure are a direct consequence of the now very much historical
events of the mid sixties.

It would make for interesting speculation were we to consider
the air campaigns of this decade, conducted by an RAF equipped with the
TSR.2 rather than the short-legged little Tornado GR.1 . The USAF 48th
TFW would have had to share its laurels as premier precision tonnage
carriers with the RAF ! Alas this was not to be, as the UK's political
leadership demolished any hopes of a home grown bomber fleet in the
sixties. In hindsight we can now safely use the terms stupidity, myopia
and ineptitude to describe the actions of the political players of the
day. There can now be no doubt, they did indeed get it very, very
wrong, and the British taxpayer and industry were the unfortunate
losers in this game.

TSR.2 - An Historical
Background

To an Australian reader the TSR.2 will be of significant
interest as it was both a viable candidate for the strategic strike
role, eventually performed by the F/RF-111C/G in RAAF service, and also
paralleled the F-111 in its development history.

In 1957 Britain's Ministry of Supply issued GOR.339 (General
Operation Requirement) which declared a requirement for a bomber to
replace the incumbent Canberra. This aircraft was to be capable of
operating from poor quality strips, and delivering the Red Beard
theatre (tactical) nuclear weapon against defended targets up to 1000
NM away, under any weather conditions. The aircraft was also to perform
radar and photographic recce, to that effect it was to carry a
"Tactical Strike Reconnaissance" or TSR designation. The technical
similarities compared to the 1958 USAF SOR-183, which defined the F-111
specification, are clearly very evident.

The TSR.2 was perhaps cursed at the very time of its birth,
for it was at this time that Duncan Sandys was propounding his rather
foolish document in which he declared that manned aircraft were
essentially irrelevant and would soon be universally replaced with
guided missiles. Forty years hence we can state without fear of
contradiction that Duncan Sandys had achieved nothing less than to
significantly damage the UK's strategic military interests by imposing
a fundamentally wrong policy direction upon the MoD and RAF.

The consequence of this policy direction was that it became
extremely difficult for the RAF to get the funding they sought for
combat aircraft research and development, let alone production. The MoD
and Treasury bureaucracies (surprisingly not unlike the US DoD
bureaucracy, and many notable elements of our own domestic DoD
bureaucracy), was never particularly forthcoming with money to buy
bombers with. Given divine providence producing a Minister who sets a
policy direction which essentially declares bombers to be "airframes
non-grata" , the bureaucracy could not have asked for a more fertile
environment to operate in. Moreover, the early sixties were also a
period of a painful and forced consolidation of the UK's airframe and
systems industry.

This clearly hostile environment was not the only challenge
to
be faced by the embryonic TSR.2, as Blackburn's NA.39 prototype,
eventually to become the Buccaneer, was repeatedly proposed as an
alternative. That the Bucc lacked the payload radius performance to
seriously compete with the GOR.339 does not appear to have been an
issue in this matter.

Virtually every design office of any substance in the UK
responded by early 1958, the Air Staff were most impressed with the
English Electric P.17A and Vickers-Armstrong (Supermarine ) 571
proposals. The former for its aerodynamics, the latter for its
integrated weapon system design, then a revolutionary idea. After some
clever contractual twists and turns, the government awarded the
contract to a joint team comprising Vickers-Armstrong and English
Electric. It is of some interest, perhaps in anticipation of
contemporary trends, that the lead contractor was the originator of the
integrated offensive avionic suite rather than the airframe.

The 50-50 split contract was awarded in early 1959.
Vickers-Armstrong assumed responsibility for the forward and centre
fuselage and systems, while English Electric concentrated their design
effort on the wings, tail and aft fuselage. The engines were to be
designed and built by Bristol-Siddeley Engines. To further complicate
organisational matters and lines of responsibility, Vickers-Armstrong,
English Electric, Bristol and Hunting merged in early 1960, to form the
new British Aircraft Corporation (BAC).

The background to the powerplant was particularly
interesting,
in that the Bristol Olympus 22R Mk.320 was mandated by the government,
some reports indicating that Rolls-Royce with their proposed RB.14213
were politically disqualified from the bidding. The Olympus 22R was a
reheated turbojet derived from the Vulcan B.2 powerplant, rated at
19,610 lb dry and 30,610 lb under reheat.

As the TSR.2 development project got under way, difficulties
began to surface. Clearly designing a weapon system of such complexity
and conceptual novelty would inevitably produce its share of technical
problems. This had later proven to be the case with the F-111, which
suffered a similar political attack to that experienced by the TSR.2 .
The F-111 lived to win its battles, the TSR.2 never made it.

Many UK sources elaborate upon the incessant dabbling by
government scientists in the TSR.2 project, over-specification or
continuous respecification of design features by air force and
government committees alike, and the ongoing problems with the design
and manufacture of the avionic suite for the aircraft, all of which had
to be custom designed for the type.

Whatever the scope of these problems, they paled into
meaningless insignificance when compared against the politician's
gaming around the contract and frequently hostile coverage by the UK
media. The government of the day had perhaps injudiciously described
the aircraft at various times as a nuclear strike aircraft, tactical
support aircraft, bomber or not-bomber, depending on whose quotes you
read. Furthermore, the UK Labour opposition of the day made great
mileage out of trashing the aircraft and anybody in any way associated
with it. A number of sources suggest that it was made quite clear to
potential foreign customers that the project would be chopped if there
was a change of government. In hindsight it would be fair to call such
behaviour sheer stupidity verging on a treasonous disregard for the
UK's national interests, all committed under the protection of
parliamentary privilege.

The biggest source of problems during the early testing of
the aircraft systems prior to prototype flights was to be found in the
engines. Two prototype Olympus 22Rs exploded in testing, one destroying
the Vulcan testbed airframe it was mounted to. The cause was ultimately
traced to the resonant ringing of a tubular low pressure shaft, which
was being excited to resonance by cooling air jets.

The aircraft first flew in late September, 1964, in the same
year that its US rival flew. Flight testing proceeded at a brisk pace,
and the aircraft flew supersonic within 5 months. The most notable
troubles during flight test were related to the complex undercarriage,
designed for STOL operations into fields with poor quality surfaces.

Early in 1965, disaster struck the TSR.2 . Having won the
election, the Labour Party proceeded to destroy the TSR.2 project . To
position itself, it systematically slandered the aircraft and the
project. To ensure that no dissenting views were heard, the government
even persuaded the test pilot not to attend a public lecture sponsored
by the RAeS, where he was expected to extoll the virtues of the
aircraft. God forbid, the truth might just leak out !

Finally, the project was killed in the budget of early April,
1965. Not only was funding stopped, but a large number of partially
built pre-production airframe components were destroyed, as were the
production jigs, tooling and much documentation. Of the completed
prototypes, only two survive in museums. XR220 lives at Cosford and
XR222 at Duxford.

The damage done to the UK's aerospace industry, and the RAF's
power projection capability, over the subsequent two decades is
immeasurable. The industry lost a significant volume of business,
international credibility, follow-on export orders and the opportunity
to independently keep pace with the US F-111 project. The F-111 became
the yardstick for a modern bomber. The result of the TSR.2 project loss
was to severely wound the UK aerospace industry at many levels,
including a severe blow to its confidence. Until the EAP demonstrator
was built, the UK aerospace industry avoided anything which might be
perceived to be risky.

The RAF suffered equally for its impertinence in wanting a
real bomber. The TSR.2 mission was to be performed by the GD F-111K, a
variant which was to be similar to the RAAF F-111C or SAC FB-111A. The
F-111K was killed in 1968 when it was found that it would be as
expensive as the TSR.2 would have been. The RAF ended up flying an
inferior variant of the F-4 Phantom, and the Blackburn Buccaneer which
they had rejected a decade earlier. The RAF did not acquire its terrain
following all-weather precision blind bomber until the late seventies,
when the multirole European (UK-FRG-Italy) Panavia Tornado IDS entered
service. The Tornado IDS is a toy bomber when compared to the F-111 or
the TSR.2, simply as it lacks the payload radius to perform beyond the
close-in theatre strike role.

The TSR.2 - A Technical
Perspective

Built for virtually the same mission profile as the USAF and
RAAF F/RF-111, the TSR.2 is an excellent illustration of how very
diverse technological solutions can yield very similar performance and
capabilities. The central driving factor in the design, as with the
F-111, was the capability to penetrate supersonically at treetop level,
using a terrain following radar. Internally carried "special" devices
would then be tossed at the target, or delivered level using a
retarding parachute. It should therefore come as no surprise that these
very different aircraft had very similar performance, size, weight

Importantly, the TSR.2 was designed to operate from poorly
supported, short runways with low quality unpaved surfaces. The
complete ground support package for the aircraft was to comprise a four
wheeled support vehicle, termed a GSV, which would provide ground
electrical power, compressed air, hydraulic power, environmental
control power and a portable hydraulic fuel pump. The GSV was to be
supplemented by a towed universal bomb/engine loading trolley cum
servicing hoist and platform, and a towed offboard test system trailer,
which would plug into the aircraft via an umbilical and provide
diagnostic testing of the avionics and systems. The final component of
this standalone air portable support package was a set of air portable
fuel bladders, not unlike the type now used as standard by the US Army
for FOB helo refuelling.

Airframe, Propulsion
and
Systems

The optimal wing for a transonic low level penetration
profile has a small area, high loading and very low aspect ratio, all
attributes which are fundamentally at odds with the need for sensible
take-off and landing distances. While the engineers at Forth Worth
opted for an extremely complex variable geometry (ie swing) wing and
segmented leading and trailing edge flap system, the aerodynamicists at
English Electric opted for a 60 degree swept leading edge delta, with
an aspect ratio of 1.96 and an area of 700 square feet. The wing was
straight, rather thin at 3.7%, and the tips "anhedralled" to enhance
stability. Clearly a fixed geometry wing with these design parameters
was optimised for the high speed portion of the envelope, and measures
other than geometry were required to achieve viable low speed lift
characteristics. The solution chosen was that of "blowing" the full
span flaps with high pressure bleed air, a scheme previously used by
Supermarine on a number of types and a key factor in the success of the
now retired Buccaneer. That this approach worked well is evidenced by a
quoted take-off run of 2,400 ft at MTOW.

The wing was wholly wet, and employed no less than seven
spars, each attached to the fuselage through a flexible link
arrangement, intended to prevent flexural distortions in the wing and
fuselage travelling through the structure and producing the painful
structural fatigue which has been so characteristic of the service life
of the F-111 and the B-52 in its latter years. To improve ride quality,
the fuselage was designed to flex and the cockpit placed into a node in
the flexure pattern.

Most of the aircraft structure was produced from machined
extrusions of L.65 Al/Cu alloy, with some components made from imported
US Al-Li (Lithium) alloys. Much of the aft fuselage was built from
RR.5B, a high temperature alloy originally devised for engine pistons,
and Titanium was applied in a number of areas. A vacuum smelted
Ni/Cr/Mb/Vd alloyed steel was used for the undercarriage.
Significantly, many of these materials and associated manufacturing
techniques were later to feature in the Concorde.

As with the F-111, fuel storage and management was a critical
design issue in the TSR.2. Most fuel was carried in the integral
fuselage tanks which occupied the upper fuselage fore and aft of the
wings. In addition, up to four 450 Imp.Gal drop tanks could be carried
on wing stations, increasing the nominal 1,000 NM combat radius to no
less than 1,500 NM. A 570 Imp.Gal ferry tank could also be fitted to
the bomb bay, yielding a 3,700 NM ferry range. A jettisonable 1,000
Imp.Gal external fuselage "blister" tank, similar in concept to that
used by the Lightning, was also under consideration. The fuel was
automatically managed by a Lucas fuel system which maintained proper
longitudinal trim by pumping fuel between the fuselage tanks. A
retractable refuelling probe was embedded in the forward left fuselage,
and a transfer rate of 450 Imp.Gals / minute could be achieved, through
the probe or a pair of ventral pressure feed ground refuelling ports.
At least one source suggests that the fuel system and engines were
ultimately to be cleared to use not only JP-4/5 (Avtur) fuels, but also
gasoline and diesel blends, for operation under wartime conditions.

The undercarriage of the TSR.2 was complex, and specifically
designed to allow operation at appreciable gross weights from poorly
surfaced strips. To this effect large tubeless tyres were employed for
the main gear, and the hydraulically steered nosewheel could be
extended by no less than 42 inches to achieve a nose up take-off
attitude. The design was created by Vickers, but largely manufactured
by Electro-Hydraulics Ltd, although the wheels and disc brakes were
supplied by Dunlop and the anti-skid system by Maxaret. To achieve
minimal roll-out on a short field, a braking chute designed by Irving
was to be used.

The aircraft employed an unconventional tail, with all three
surfaces built as fully movable slabs, and no fences on the wings or
ventral stabilisers used. Roll and pitch control, as with the F-111,
was provided by the large stabs, however due the smaller span of the
TSR.2 and thus lesser rolling moment required, the control forces were
produced wholly by the stabs. To increase the effectiveness of these at
low speeds, the trailing edge of the stabs was hinged and actuated,
providing in effect a trailing edge flap.

The TSR.2 employed a flight control system which was in
modern
terms, a hybrid fly-by-wire system, using a US Autonetics designed
Verdan flight control computer. The US of a US computer rather than a
UK design stemmed from Duncan Sandys' edict, which meant that R&D
funding for the UK Elliot DEXAN was chopped earlier. The flight control
system was redundant, triply and quadruply in some areas, and used a
combination of mechanical and electrical signalling.

The hydraulic system operated at 4,000 PSI, powered by two
accessory drive pumps on the engines, and a Bristol Siddeley Cumulus
APU fitted forward of the bomb bay. The electrical system was powered
by a pair of engine mounted 400 Hz 55 kVA Rotax alternators, on Plessey
constant speed drives.

The pair of Olympus engines employed water injection from a
80
Imp.Gal tank for increased take-off thrust. The Lucas designed inlets
were reminiscent of the F-104, using a semicircular design with the
shock front adjusted by a translating centrebody. Auxiliary inlets
would swing open at low speed to increase airflow. The exhaust nozzles
were actuated by a redundant hydraulic system, employing fuel as a
working fluid. The engines could be started with compressed air from a
ground cart, or from the electrically started onboard APU, with cross
bleed from a started engine used to start the remaining engine.

The cockpits were fully air-conditioned and pressurised, with
heat from the cockpits and avionics racks dumped into the fuel by
Marston-Excelsior heat exchangers. A stored liquid oxygen system was to
be used. The aircrew would wear ventilated suits, and sat on Martin
Baker Mk.8A zero-zero seats. The aircraft had a command ejection
system, which could eject crew members in sequence, or the navigator
individually, with automatic jettison of the cockpit canopies. The
windshield was designed to a stringent birdstrike specification.

Offensive Avionic Suite

The offensive avionic suite on the TSR.2 was to be a hybrid
analogue-digital system, well ahead of the analogue system used in the
early F-111A/E, and similar in many respects to the F-111D Mk.II
system.

The complex nav-attack system employed a Smiths air-data
computer, a Ferranti inertial platform and a Decca Doppler system for
precision velocity updates. Precise navigation fixes were provided by
the EMI Side Looking Airborne Radar (SLAR), which provided a high
resolution ground map to the navigator. The SLAR employed a pair of 7.5
ft side looking antennas in the fuselage, below the forward cockpit. It
was intended the SLAR be used every 100 NM or so, to provide an update
only to the nav-attack computer.

The TSR.2 employed a dual channel Terrain Following Radar
(TFR) conceptually similar to that in the F-111. The TSR.2 system
employed a Ferranti monopulse TFR, which fed the dual channel Elliot
Automation autopilot/TF computer with terrain profile measurements
ahead of the aircraft. A pair of STC radar altimeters complemented the
TFR. The system provided not only automated vertical clearance down to
200 ft AGL, but also provided for automatic routing around obstacles.
The terrain clearance data was also provided to the pilot as cues on
his Rank-Cintel Head Up Display (HUD). Both crewmembers had moving map
displays, in addition the navigator had a large radar scope. It was
intended that the pilot's station be fitted with three digital cockpit
displays (MFDs) in production aircraft. It was intented that the
pilot's workload be minimised, to this effect a fully automatic fuel
management system was fitted to balance the aircraft's CoG.

The TSR.2 was fitted with two forward looking and two lateral
F.95 cameras which would be activated at the IP. The Elliot Weapon
Aiming Computer (WAC) provided a range of visual and blind dive, level
laydown and tossing modes for nuclear and conventional bombs. A fully
automatic toss mode was included for nuclear delivery, during which a
pitch up, automatic arming and release of the bomb and wing-over escape
manoeuvre would be flown by the onboard computers.

The aircraft was fitted with a Plessey UHF/VHF radio, Marconi
HF radio and Cossor IFF system. A Marconi ILS was fitted for blind
approaches.

Mission Payload

The nominal payload for the tactical nuclear mission was to
be
a single UK designed Red Beard which was a second generation
lightweight tactical fission weapon. It employed a tritium boosted
plutonium/U-235 composite core, providing a yield between 10 and 20 kT.
The Red Beard was to be tossed. A level laydown weapon to be carried on
the TSR.2 was the parachute retarded WE177A, a later weapon reputedly
of US design. The WE177 is available in 200 kT tactical (WE177A) and
400 kT strategic (WE177B) yield versions, and is still in service on
the Tornado GR.1. Two rounds would be carried.

Conventional bombs could be carried internally, a typical
payload being six of the standard UK 1,000 lb dumb bombs. The four wing
pylons could also carry single or tandem pairs of one thousand
pounders, or alternately AJ.168 Martel ASMs or rocket pods.

A comprehensive package of recce equipment could be carried.
An EMI K-band recce SLAR with Moving Target Indicator (MTI) modes could
be fitted to the weapon bay, this sensor would map a 10 NM strip on
either side of the aircraft on to a film strip. Another recce tool was
to be the Hawker Siddeley Dynamics/Mullard thermal imaging linescanner,
which was equipped with a radio datalink to relay pictures in real time
to a ground station. A TV camera system was also under consideration,
also with a datalink. Up to three FX.126 recce film cameras could also
be fitted.

The EW fit was never disclosed, but would most likely have
comprised similar equipment items to those used on the V-bombers as
these were available off the shelf. One UK commentator perhaps
cynically remarked that there was no EW suite, as it would have been no
doubt blocked by the UK Treasury !

Mission Profile and
Performance

The TSR.2 has been described as aerodynamically a Mach 3
aircraft, built with materials to a Mach 2+ specification. A nominal
mission profile for the TSR.2 would involve an afterburning takeoff and
5,000 ft/min climb to 23,000 ft, followed by a Mach 0.92 dry cruise
climb to 26,000 ft. At 630 NM, afterburning thrust would be selected
again, and a Mach 1.7 climb to 50,000 ft initiated upon entering
hostile airspace. The TSR.2 would then dive at Mach 1.7 down to low
level, where it would decelerate to its TF 600 kt/200 ft AGL
penetration mode. The aircraft was cleared to TF at Mach 1.2 / 200 ft
AGL.

A maximum performance takeoff would involve 30 degrees of
flap, full reheat, with the nosewheel hydraulically extended at 90 kt,
with the aircraft rotating at 145 kt using 1,000 to 3,000 ft of runway.
Typical landings would be carried out with 30 degrees of flap with 165
kt on short finals, the parachute deployed on touchdown.

Nominal combat radius was 1,000 NM for the specified
Hi-Lo-Lo-Hi profile, with 1,500 NM achievable using external tanks and
2,120 NM with a single inflight refuelling.

The typical TSR.2 mission would differ little from that of
the
F-111. As the aircraft was slightly faster and longer ranging, it would
offer slightly more punch than any F-111 variant. Whether a production
TSR.2 in squadron service could offer the aircraft's nominal
performance we will never know. In most areas the TSR.2 was nominally
slightly more capable than the F-111, with better thrust to weight
ratio, speed, climb rate, range and avionic capability. Whether this
would translate into an appreciable advantage in combat capability is
open to debate.

Conclusions

The TSR.2 was a state of the art strike aircraft clearly
comparable or slightly better to the F-111 in every respect. Its
avionic package in particular was comparable to later models of the
F-111 and could be regarded as revolutionary in its day. Were the
aircraft to have entered RAF service it would have provided a powerful
deterrent to Soviet theatre forces in Europe. As history illustrates,
the two USAF F-111 wings in the UK would have been hard pressed to
maintain the required operational tempo, bolstered by two to three RAF
wings of TSR.2 aircraft the Soviets would have faced an overwhelming
conventional and theatre nuclear strike capability. This would have
certainly contributed to accelerating the USSR's eventual arms race
induced collapse.

The TSR.2 would clearly have been a viable alternative to the
F-111 for the RAAF, indeed the slightly better range performance would
have been greatly appreciated by the RAAF. In hindsight however the
Menzies government's choice of the F-111 proved to be better, as we
would have no doubt suffered the same fate as the RAF in 1965.

The impact of the TSR.2 cancellation on the UK aerospace and
avionics industry is immeasurable. Of the 60 firms involved in the
project, 57 no longer exist. Were he project to have proceeded many of
these manufacturers would be operating today and contributing
significant export revenues to the UK economy.

The lesson for Australia is that there is no substitute for a
robust domestic high technology manufacturing base, and that a
significant government commitment to domestic manufacture is required
in the short and medium term if the long terms dividends of market
dominance in any given sector are to be realised. Another important
lesson is that the experts should be allowed to do what they do best,
and amateurs in the political and bureaucratic arenas should butt out.
There is no useful contribution which can be made by lay participants
in high technology systems design and specification. Indeed a number of
key ADF programs today suffer the consequences of bureaucratic meddling
in the eighties (and the DoD committees responsible for this meddling
know this very well).

The UK aerospace industry has recovered in the three decades
since the loss of the TSR.2, but the question we must ask today is what
could it have been were the program to have survived ?